That's a shame. Gravity looks like a clever app, and the UX in the reviewer video was pretty slick. The spoon + quarter calibration is great!
This sort of thing is why I'm increasingly disinterested in developing for iOS for fun (and why most of my recent side project work has been on web apps). App review is effectively a black box since the rules are applied so inconsistently, and working for weeks or months on something only to find out the Apple doesn't like it is a constant concern. Add in the the real and psychological barriers app review imposes when making bug fixes or updates, and it makes going back to the web rather attractive. It'd be nice to see Apple make some changes to the process.
(I know I could move over to Android dev, but since I use an iPhone it's not terribly interesting for side projects - though that's my problem, not Androids's.)
App review is effectively a black box since the rules are applied so inconsistently, and working for weeks or months on something only to find out the Apple doesn't like it is a constant concern.
Unless you're Facebook which has recently been caught abusing silent notifications to start up in the background and continue running permanently by streaming music at zero-volume while draining battery.
Apple responds decently when developers have big media presence notice their abusive process and rolls over passively when powerful players like Facebook have them over a barrel. It's a stormy ocean when you're independent. Best to be careful.
Apple's position is actually very easy to understand.
Don't do anything that is likely to cause significant harm to them. Examples of this include: (a) negative press publicity e.g. porn app, drone strike app, (b) stealing from or harming their customers and of course (c) this app where they will have to cover the cost of you putting heavy objects on something that it was never designed to do.
If you want to damage your own phone go ahead. You can build a weighing app and deploy it to your phone. But expecting Apple to endorse (which is what the App Store actually is) stupid behaviour was never going to happen.
Clever idea and use of technology, not surprised to see Apple reject as they want nothing to do with either concepts.
As a developer I will never develop for, support, condone or recommend Apple products to anyone I know because of such behaviour, they want a wall garden, good for them, but I'll have no active part in it.
Someone, probably very soon, and probably more than one or even ten people, would overload the weight and crack their screen. At which point they would show up at the Apple Store DEMANDING a brand new phone.
When they didn't get the repair because they're too stupid to understand how glass works they would contact CNN or HuffPo or whatever and there'd be a flurry about "glassgate" or something. Same way that putting a thin phone in your back pocket, SITTING on it and then complaining it bent set off a huge issue and tons of news coverage.
There is a walled garden, this is not an example of Apple overreaching though.
someone might use it to weigh medication or something explosive etc... they can't be held liable. but of course this should be the developer's fault not apple's but apple wouldn't be apple if they didn't exercise their dictatorship from time to time.
Really cool app, and a shame Apple rejected it. Using a spoon was a very clever idea.
Why did you choose to display weight in grams to 3 decimal points when the measurements are only accurate to within 3g? It would be better to not display the values after the decimal point, so you don't give your users a false sense of accuracy.
(Sorry for the slow response!)
I'm really glad you called this out! You're totally right. The demo video was shot with an earlier version of the app before this was fixed :)
>Apple has a moral and ethical onus to make the right choices be it related to the confederate flag, changing drug laws, or using emoji to fight bullying, and we respect that.
I can't decide if he really respects that or if he's still hoping to get his app approved. Companies should not be in the business of trying to enforce (clearly unenforceable) laws by removing features that do perfectly legal things.
> Companies should not be in the business of trying to enforce (clearly unenforceable) laws by removing features that do perfectly legal things.
Dragon-dick dildos are legal, but that hardly means Wal-Mart is under any obligation to stock them for sale if that's not something they want their brand associated with.
If Apple doesn't want their brand to be associated with racist apps, or pornography, or pony apps, or whatever they choose, why would it not be their right to do the same as Wal-Mart?
As consumers, we can choose where to shop based on what stores do and do not stock. If you don't like what Apple stocks, don't shop in its store, and don't buy their devices.
Completely aside from the merits of anti-drug laws, the number of perfectly legitimate applications for "weighing things" is vastly larger than the number of illegal ones.
But companies equally have a right to own the experience. Creating an app to harvest hardware identifiers and using that to track them is legal. But it tarnishes the experience of their product and is anti-consumer by every definition. Apple should have the ability not to allow that.
Just because something is legal does not make it morally or ethically "right".
>Apple has a moral and ethical onus to make the right choices be it related to the confederate flag, changing drug laws, or using emoji to fight bullying, and we respect that.
Do you, or do you fear retaliation from Apple if you bad mouth them?
A year or two ago some developer [0] figured out how to code some sort of pseudo pressure sensitivity into a music making app, which seemed to work well from what I heard. Apple eventually banned the app from their store citing improper use of the code base.
[0] trying to search for it, seems lost to the memory hole
The app was called "Orphion", and it had several methods for detecting gestures/articulations: a gentle finger tip touch, a tap, and a push down. Apple cited forbidden private API use.
Apple just called me to nicely tell me I use a private
API function to sense the area of the screen which is
covered by the finger for its articulation gesture ([CDM]
wrote about it). This is crazy – thousands of users love
it for this and it makes Orphion so expressive.
The app will be removed from the App Store in two weeks
if I don’t submit a new version without it – and I
currently can’t think of Orphion without this gesture.
So what I can recommend is
1. Everyone who wants to have the “original” Orphion get
it NOW from the app store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app
/orphion/id495465097), it will be only be there for a few
more days
2. Backup the current version to keep it. (Michael Tyson
from Audiobus made this great tutorial)
3. Tell Apple to make this great function officially
usable in apps (Any ideas how to do that?)
So far… let’s see if this is really the end of Orphion.
Apple now allows you to sideload apps from source without paying the developer fee, so it can still be distributed in source format for anyone to install.
Note that the 1944 90% silver Washington quarters pictured
would weigh 6.25 grams each, while the 1965+ cupro-nickel
sandwich quarters weigh 5.67g each.
I doubt that Apple's primary concern is people breaking their screens. It would actually be quite difficult to break your screen by putting heavy weights onto a spoon.
No, Apple's concern is supporting this app to the future. They don't know if they'll be sticking with this same kind of sensor for future models, and they don't know that any future sensor will be backwards compatible for this app. If people get used to using this app, suddenly they'd be under an obligation to keep it working, thus losing options for future designs.
Considering how frequently and heavily Apple pushes developers for other updates (e.g. new iOS version support, 64-bit support, etc.) I'd be shocked if future support were any consideration in the rejection. I'd expect Apple to be perfectly happy to deprecate and/or replace an API, allow changes in undefined behavior in future models and so on. If the app breaks, so be it.
I would happily pay money for this app, a true shame that it has been rejected. This story makes me wish that there were easy to use sideloading opportunities for app developers within iOS.
Xcode 7 lets you compile and run apps on a device without a developer account. It would require giving out your source code, but at least it's available.
I thought this was a great article, until the end where the author not only gives up, but writes a meek apologietic stating that Apple is clearly and wholly right to block people from running any software it doesn't like on their own phones, without explanation.
Does Apple retaliate against people who complain about the App Store review process in public or something?
Pleasantly surprised at the developers' reaction to the rejection. It's like they knew that there was a chance and they weren't really upset when it didn't go their way. Kudos to them for their ingenuity despite the failure.
Could the heavier weight (not big enough to break the screen) could actually damage the force touch sensor also? But probably the screen damage possibility was the reason for the rejection.
[+] [-] w4|10 years ago|reply
This sort of thing is why I'm increasingly disinterested in developing for iOS for fun (and why most of my recent side project work has been on web apps). App review is effectively a black box since the rules are applied so inconsistently, and working for weeks or months on something only to find out the Apple doesn't like it is a constant concern. Add in the the real and psychological barriers app review imposes when making bug fixes or updates, and it makes going back to the web rather attractive. It'd be nice to see Apple make some changes to the process.
(I know I could move over to Android dev, but since I use an iPhone it's not terribly interesting for side projects - though that's my problem, not Androids's.)
[+] [-] gabemart|10 years ago|reply
Fragmentation and the frequency of device- or vendor-specific bugs and other issues take a lot of the fun out of Android dev for me.
[+] [-] WildUtah|10 years ago|reply
Unless you're Facebook which has recently been caught abusing silent notifications to start up in the background and continue running permanently by streaming music at zero-volume while draining battery.
Apple responds decently when developers have big media presence notice their abusive process and rolls over passively when powerful players like Facebook have them over a barrel. It's a stormy ocean when you're independent. Best to be careful.
increasingly disinterested in
You mean 'uninterested,' not 'disinterested.'
[+] [-] threeseed|10 years ago|reply
Don't do anything that is likely to cause significant harm to them. Examples of this include: (a) negative press publicity e.g. porn app, drone strike app, (b) stealing from or harming their customers and of course (c) this app where they will have to cover the cost of you putting heavy objects on something that it was never designed to do.
If you want to damage your own phone go ahead. You can build a weighing app and deploy it to your phone. But expecting Apple to endorse (which is what the App Store actually is) stupid behaviour was never going to happen.
[+] [-] Mikushi|10 years ago|reply
As a developer I will never develop for, support, condone or recommend Apple products to anyone I know because of such behaviour, they want a wall garden, good for them, but I'll have no active part in it.
[+] [-] cguess|10 years ago|reply
People are dumb.
Someone, probably very soon, and probably more than one or even ten people, would overload the weight and crack their screen. At which point they would show up at the Apple Store DEMANDING a brand new phone.
When they didn't get the repair because they're too stupid to understand how glass works they would contact CNN or HuffPo or whatever and there'd be a flurry about "glassgate" or something. Same way that putting a thin phone in your back pocket, SITTING on it and then complaining it bent set off a huge issue and tons of news coverage.
There is a walled garden, this is not an example of Apple overreaching though.
[+] [-] kyriakos|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skaevola|10 years ago|reply
Why did you choose to display weight in grams to 3 decimal points when the measurements are only accurate to within 3g? It would be better to not display the values after the decimal point, so you don't give your users a false sense of accuracy.
[+] [-] ryanmcleod|10 years ago|reply
Here's a more recent video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3S95b9gAC8 One decimal place (in grams) was kept since precision != accuracy.
[+] [-] gabemart|10 years ago|reply
It's a shame, it seems like a neat application and I can totally imagine using an app like this to weigh spices or coffee beans.
[+] [-] gitah|10 years ago|reply
By accepting the app, Apple is implicitly allowing the use case of using the phone as a scale.
[+] [-] threeseed|10 years ago|reply
Seriously ?
You would rather potentially ruin your $700 phone by breaking the screen or getting spice particles inside instead of buying a $5 scale.
[+] [-] tsotha|10 years ago|reply
I can't decide if he really respects that or if he's still hoping to get his app approved. Companies should not be in the business of trying to enforce (clearly unenforceable) laws by removing features that do perfectly legal things.
[+] [-] msbarnett|10 years ago|reply
Dragon-dick dildos are legal, but that hardly means Wal-Mart is under any obligation to stock them for sale if that's not something they want their brand associated with.
If Apple doesn't want their brand to be associated with racist apps, or pornography, or pony apps, or whatever they choose, why would it not be their right to do the same as Wal-Mart?
As consumers, we can choose where to shop based on what stores do and do not stock. If you don't like what Apple stocks, don't shop in its store, and don't buy their devices.
[+] [-] pjlegato|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threeseed|10 years ago|reply
Just because something is legal does not make it morally or ethically "right".
[+] [-] mindslight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cromwellian|10 years ago|reply
Do you, or do you fear retaliation from Apple if you bad mouth them?
[+] [-] croddin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] art0rz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robwormald|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nosuchthing|10 years ago|reply
[0] trying to search for it, seems lost to the memory hole
[+] [-] nosuchthing|10 years ago|reply
http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/06/hands-off-apple-wants-...
...looks like the petition worked and Orphion was allowed to keep the gesture functionality; https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/orphion/id495465097[+] [-] LeoPanthera|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shalmanese|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmckeon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrusi|10 years ago|reply
No, Apple's concern is supporting this app to the future. They don't know if they'll be sticking with this same kind of sensor for future models, and they don't know that any future sensor will be backwards compatible for this app. If people get used to using this app, suddenly they'd be under an obligation to keep it working, thus losing options for future designs.
[+] [-] fpgeek|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jitle|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w4|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjlegato|10 years ago|reply
Does Apple retaliate against people who complain about the App Store review process in public or something?
[+] [-] dkonofalski|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevewilhelm|10 years ago|reply
http://flexmonkey.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-plum-o-meter-we...
[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply
(Submitted title was "Apple shuts down app that uses 'Force Touch' to weigh objects".)
[+] [-] tmd83|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bud|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicallee|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sea2summit|10 years ago|reply